Freedom or control?

Freedom or control?

Sitting and drinking with my old buddies, the fun is always in the fierce arguing — the other times it's one guy talking while the other just mumbles: Yes yes brother, you're wrong all the way to Mars but I don't even feel like pushing back.

All of us are graying U50s so everyone has a kid or two, except the ones who don't want any, so the second most heated topic is obviously the kids. The most heated is always software but since I always win we don't need to go there. The thing is, how do you manage and raise kids in this information-tech age that's "way too new for us old guys"? What's even new about it? ChatGPT, TikTok, Pornhub, YouTube, whatever the hell comes out tomorrow — how do you manage all this now?

I have no fucking clue! Because my kid is only two years old and I know nothing to say! She's only two, what's there to worry about! So I love listening to these guys whose kids aren't even 18 yet argue about it.

I don't know anything. But I know a few stories like these:

My ba taught me: when you grow up, do you want to hold a broom and sweep trash, hold a lottery ticket, hold a bucket of sand helping masons, or hold a pen and sign your name? Figure out how to live, or else you'll end up holding a bowl and begging! In the end I didn't even bother holding a pen — I hold a virtual keyboard!

My má ran a stall by the river, leaving early at night and coming home late in the morning. In 2003 I asked her for two thousand US dollars to go study programming for two years. She said: I don't even know what that is, I'm the boss of Vĩnh Long market (not a small market) and I asked everyone and nobody knows what that subject is. Fine, má will let you go study whatever it is, what else can I do! By the end of 2004 I'd earned back the tuition, which at the time was six taels of gold!

I don't know how your life was, but I've always had to fend for myself. Nothing to eat, I'd have to scrounge cold rice and pour rainwater over it to eat. Not because there was nothing at home, but because I didn't know how to cook anything. That's how I discovered rainwater tastes incredible with a splash of soy sauce! From middle school through high school I studied on my own — nobody tutored me — free to go play video games. Ba, má, my sister — what the hell did they know about electronics to stop me. And even if they'd tried, they couldn't have. I only had to get slightly good grades to earn the freedom to "go to extra classes."

"But then you don't control him, he goes bad!" Correct! Bad as hell. Stealing money, skipping extra classes, sleeping in parks, flunking the college entrance exam, cockfighting, gambling, drinking, bar girls, chasing girls, drugs. I did it all!

But why did the youngest kid like me end up more successful than my older siblings? Because ba and má were busy managing and tutoring my older brother and sister! You two have to be like this, have to be like that, have to do this, have to study, have to, have to, have to. I had to wear my brother's hand-me-down clothes, his used books, his leftover paper! I didn't have many resources of my own. I always had to fight for ba and má's attention, so the chance for me to turn rotten from entitlements (don't know how to translate it, let's call it "taking for granted that this is owed to me") was zero, because my siblings would give me a beating! And I got plenty of beatings for being the spoiled one. My older brother once held a knife to my neck because I… didn't wash the dishes. My older sister beat me without mercy and gave me the chance to sleep at the museum where I almost got butt-raped by some gay guy! Or maybe my mouth, who knows what he would've done?

So how could a successful and wise kid be the one raised under his parents' tight control, if his parents are even still alive? My friends like DJ, whose mother abandoned him on the street (actually at a bookstore), is about to become a citizen of the world compared to my brother who touches something and it turns to ruin. Like Violet, whose ba died before she was 18 — she became a general both inside and outside the house. Like the CEO whose older brother beat him to a pulp (a bit less than me) — now he's gentle and kind, can't beat anyone.

If you don't believe me, believe grandpa Jordan Peterson talking about this https://youtu.be/Zl7h7fOSsPE?si=vXVi9fPPEq3_d0xU&t=03m45s.

If you want to chalk it up to me self-studying well and being lucky, I appreciate that too. But luck only comes to people always ready to grab the chance. A starving kid dying of thirst — the one who has to scoop ditch water to drink or die — like me, I grab every piece of luck!

But you still have to teach the kids! Right! But teach, not panic every time they get near the fan afraid they'll lose a finger and forbid them from going near.

So what do you teach?

My ba taught me how to be a person:

Choose your friends carefully.
No friend is closer than blood siblings.
You must know words and letters to become somebody.
No matter how poor, never be a beggar.
Helping others doesn't mean they'll think you're good.
It's a blessing when someone brings you food and you don't have to do anything. But you still have to chew.
Every now and then, remember to drink some cooling herbal water, son.
On Tết, remember to come home and light incense at the ancestors' altar.
If it's not near you, not your business, then even if you speak up it won't help.
You must love animals, but loving birds doesn't mean catching them for your own cage. If you must catch one, take good care of it, don't let it starve.
Greet when you arrive, say goodbye when you leave.
Focus wholeheartedly on your work, on every task.
Be like Quan Công!
One word of truth, not a single word of lies!
Being too blunt can get you killed.
Living, you must know the people around you.

Ba taught me so much, just a few lines like these. I remember them my whole life and live by them. If he were still alive and saw me rambling on this dumb Facebook thing, I'd have gotten the beating of my life.

Maybe if that were the case I wouldn't have to write!